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58 travel news December 2014/January 2015
December 2014/January 2015 travel news 59
book reviews
book reviews
Reviews by
Julia Lawrence
Culture Clash
by Rupert Watson
Rupert Watson tells the story of Major
Hugh Grant, subtitling it ‘The Death of
a District Commissioner in the Loita
Hills’, an incident some will still recollect,
together with the events leading to its
climax in August 1946. It has been written
about before, but Watson’s short and very
readable book brings a brilliant clarity and
analytical approach to an old story, giving
the subject fresh dimensions.
Major Grant, highly decorated in the Great
War, arrived in Kenya in 1922, seconded
to the King’s African Rifles. In 1925 he
resigned from the Army and bought a
small fruit farm in Limuru where he met
his future wife Pauline. Hugh decided to
join the Colonial Service, completed his
required year’s study at Cambridge, and
returned to Kenya in 1930 as District
Officer Mandera. He remained a DC with
military connections throughout World War
II. In March 1946 he was posted as District
Commissioner, Narok, where he settled
happily with his wife and three children.
The Maasai tribe was probably the
colony’s least understood ethnic group
in Kenya. They regarded themselves
as the messianic guardians of all cattle,
not just their own. Cattle not cash was
their currency, consequently to meet the
demand to supply bullocks to government
quota requirements for slaughter was
unpopular, nor did they wish to be lectured
on the hazards of over-grazing. That,
together with their nomadic habits and
complete disregard for colonial discipline,
never made life easy for a Narok DC.
Karambu was a typical Maasai, raised in
his clan’s carefully structured male society.
At the start of this story he had just entered
his role as a tribal elder.
The catastrophe that transpired between
him and Major Grant has all the qualities
of an ancient Greek tragedy. What was
about to happen should never have
occurred: if circumstances had been just
a little different the whole incident could
have been avoided – if only!
Watson explains meticulously the build-
up to the disaster that happened at the
Lioita Hills cattle sale, putting forward both
points of view – Karambu’s, who claimed
not to know of the cattle sale and failed
to arrive until too late, while Grant, having
risen at 1.00 a.m. in the morning is seen
as exhausted and would probably have
been of a different frame of mind had he
either not been so tired, or if Karambu
had been in on arrangements from the
start. Watson’s concluding analysis of
Karambu’s trial and his reasoning behind
it is, like the rest of the book, is incisively
thought out. One sympathises equally with
both parties: how could one not? He has
written both well and wisely.
The King’s Curse
by Philippa Gregory
Gregory excels in this her last ‘Tudor Court’
novel. Margaret Pole is the storyteller. She
is a Plantagenet, one of the old pre-Tudor
royal descendents of Edward III. To the
Tudors, whose claim to the throne remains
tenuous, the Plantagenets continue as
a threat, since they are both numerous
and prolific in male heirs, while the Tudor
dynasty fails to produce legitimate male
successors. Gregory writes as a novelist,
free to interpret events and people as she
sees them, but she has used her research
more than her imagination as the basis of
this story, resulting in careful analyses of
characters and events.
Margaret Pole is a countess in her own
right. Rich with a strong claim to the throne
herself, she cares first for young Prince
Arthur, then the child and future Henry VIII,
and later his daughter Mary. Gregory’s
interpretation of Henry is incisive, first as
the young prince with the charmed life
who delights all England. Later when his
health and mind break up he becomes a
monster. Who dares cross him suffers. (It
is now thought that he may have suffered
from McLeod syndrome which would
cause his erratic behaviour, first evident in
his pursuit of Anne Boleyn).
Gregory describes the circumstances of
the English Reformation in detail. It did
not occur because the new Protestant
religion looked better than the old: it
happened solely because it suited the
King to make what were then considered
to be preposterous claims. Gregory shows
how he sends even his dearest friends to
the block. The disastrous Dissolution of
the Monasteries follows, with its incurring
social catastrophe. Henry’s cruelty when
defied knows no bounds and his dealings
with the Pilgrimage of Grace typify the
unpredictable monster he had become.
Corrupt some monasteries were, but
they were solely the targets of his greed.
Thomas Cromwell, as did his predecessor
Wolsey, served Henry loyally, but they too
met their end at Henry’s wish.
Margaret Pole is an interesting if tragic
figure, a victim of both Henry VIII and
of his father Henry VII. The Plantagenet
threat to the throne was indeed a real one
with which Henry became increasingly
obsessed. Gregory has given history a
new realism, recreating the people and
their beliefs of that extremely bloody reign,
leaving us in no doubt that the jovial image
of good old ‘Bluff King Hal’ is false: sadly
Henry became a tormented, unreliable
and unpredictable tyrant.